I Can Do This!: RVing where the Moose and the Caribou Play

By Carl Rohne

I Can Do This! traces the adventures of a newly married senior couple and their world traveler Chihuahua in a very large RV named Regina Victoria (sometimes as imperious as her namesake). The journey takes them through the wilds of Canada and Alaska as far north as the Arctic Ocean, ending eventually in Bagdad by the Bay (San Francisco). Somewhere between Moose Jaw (Canada) and Chicken (Alaska), the author, accustomed for 50 years to picking up the phone and calling for help, learns that he can do many things which he never would have thought possible. The mysteries of a huge diesel engine, arcane RV plumbing, leaks and squeaks, and mechanical bits that often went" bump in the night" were challenges to be overcome – often with humor and occasionally in sheer terror. Three highway trips on roads truly less travelled (and seldom paved) – the Dempster, the Denali, the Top of the World - provide major challenges with commensurate rewards. The story also details the conflict (and growth) between two very independent and strong-willed newly weds, both in recovery and learning about each other as they roll across Canada and wend their way north to the Beaufort Sea, then into Alaska, on through British Columbia, finishing Odyssey Part I on the Left Coast.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Aug 13, 2021
• ISBN: 9781098372217

Carl Rohne

Carl Rohne earned his PhD in Medieval History at USC, taught history, became an editor, marketing manager, real estate broker, and professional elf at his wife Sandra's successful Bed and Breakfast. He now lives in Southern Arizona.

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I Can Do This!

RVing where the Moose and the Caribou Play

©2021 Carl Rohne

All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

print ISBN: 978-1-09837-220-0

ebook ISBN: 978-1-09837-221-7

Contents

On The Road

Northbound

Issues

We Ride the Purple Sage

Westward Ho

Wilder Roads

The Dempster

A Special Festival

On to Alaska

The Denali

And Bears… Oh, My!

Slowly South

A Touch of Class

A Returning

The Left Coast

Homecoming

CHAPTER 1

On The Road

Slumped in disbelief, I watched the highest Pacific tide of the month close in on the huge rear tires of our RV. Our 38-foot home on wheels was deeply stuck in the sands of an Oregon beach and the water was rising – fast. We had been told that beach driving was possible (and even legal) here so my bride of six months, Sandra, and I had decided to take the RV out for an afternoon on the sand. We had high hopes of camping overnight at the magical edge of the Pacific.

We had motored slowly onto the beach, Sandra skillfully piloting the big rig. She had turned the RV south along the wet sand paralleling the Pacific and I had gotten into the beach scene, cranking up an old Mamas and Papas CD and opening all the windows to let the sound flow. Glancing sideways, I noticed that Sandra was suddenly gripping the steering wheel very tightly and her eyes were narrowed in concentration. I took these as signs of impending trouble and asked her what was happening. She replied that the RV was behaving oddly, losing traction. To be safe, we decided to turn sharply left, heading up shore onto drier sand that might provide better traction. Bad choice! The coach instantly sank to the hubs in some of the softest sand we had ever encountered.

We both got out to assess the situation, which didn’t appear promising at first blush. Being embedded was bad enough, but making matters much worse (and more tense) was the rapidly rising tide. This was the point at which a stomach-tightening fear set in. If we couldn’t figure out what to do – and quickly - there was a distinct possibility we would lose the rig to the ocean. Fortunately, we owned a shiny new camp shovel, bought after a prior debacle (that time in thick, rich Alaskan mud). I unlimbered my new toy and discovered what I really needed was a construction-grade backhoe.

The faster I shoveled the sand from around the rear wheels, the faster it seemed to flow back into the hole I had just made. Shovel, shovel, pant, pant, shovel, shovel! There seemed no way my 70-year old straining muscles and my little shovel were going to free those fat rear tires. Once this dawned on me and I ran out of energy (pretty much simultaneous events) I decided to find out if my cell phone would work on the beach. Yes! I had bars. Should I call 911? Being a guy, there was a brief battle between pride and tide. Tide quickly won. I called.

The very bored dispatcher explained, between yawns, that being stranded in the sand was my problem, not that of the local gendarmerie. She did, however, relent and give me the name of a towing company experienced in beach removals. I thanked her and called the haul-out service. My mind visualized rescue arriving in the form of a gigantic wrecker similar to those featured on reality TV shows such as Highway Through Hell or Heavy Rescue - a multi-axle, always-shiny, chromed monster with a rotator that could move bridge girders without breaking a sweat. After all, our diesel condo tipped the scales at over 17 tons of impressive bulk. And our obese girl was getting more stuck by the moment.

When succor finally did show up, it came disguised as a battered Toyota pickup, a vehicle whose better days were several decades in the past. A rusty red color, with bits of wire and tape holding the important mechanicals together… was this truck to be our Galahad? Lacking only the obligatory high-mount machine gun, it strongly resembled those trucks shown on cable news plowing through Mid-Eastern deserts loaded down with bearded combatants. The driver, a young man with the nonchalance of one who has seen and heard it all from dumb, stuck tourists, jumped down and surveyed the problem. I was incredulous as to how this little four-banger was going to move Regina Victoria, but he had a solution immediately at hand. We would remain where we were – trapped - with the tide rising. Well, that sounded encouraging!

But wait, not to worry… he would come back in three hours or so to see how y’all are doin.’ If the situation hadn’t deteriorated any further, he would then effect a rescue. Three hours, he explained, would allow the tide to crest and then recede. Once it had ebbed a bit, he could, as he put it, Just winch ‘er out… no sweat. My eyebrows were now raised slightly above my receding hairline. Mildly put, I was dubious but we had no other choice. Our greatest concern was that the RV would majestically and slowly tip over sideways, becoming a massive, inert insurance claim. Or, it might sink in further as the tide rose, likely destroying its large and expensive engine now located just inches above the very salty Pacific.

The next three hours passed very slowly. I feigned disinterest, walking our Chihuahua, Smokey, up and down the busy beach and furtively glancing every three seconds at the RV to see if the ocean had yet claimed it. Sandra, of course, remained calm as she always did in such situations, preparing a lunch for us to enjoy while watching the waves lap at the beach .At high tide, as we nibbled on curried egg salad sandwiches, the ocean was caressing the double rear tires with the last eight feet of the coach sitting squarely over a great puddle of very corrosive water.

Just as promised, our tow driver returned after three hours and once again surveyed the situation while figuratively scratching his chin. With a couple of words of instructions, he backed his truck up about 30 feet, then performed a surprising maneuver. Gunning his engine, he buried all four wheels of his truck in the wet sand. Tires spinning, engine whining into higher octaves, sand flying madly in all directions, his truck sank deeper and deeper. Once satisfied he had created a solid anchor at his end, he unwound his winch cable and attached its big hook to a tow point on the rear of the motorhome. Next, our rescuer told us to start the engine in the RV as we were going to have to add some backup power. Arrangements complete, the tow driver started his winch, the line tightened, Sandra hit the gas pedal and ….nothing happened!

This came as a bit of a surprise to all of us. Reconsidering, the driver instructed Sandra to keep her foot off the throttle this time. The idea was to let diesel creep work for us, and it did! Slowly we began to inch backwards. We moved at the speed of a geriatric snail on crutches, but with deliberate inevitability. The coach just kept reversing at this incredibly slow pace until the rear tires were free of their deep ruts and resting on firmer damp sand. At this point, we were able to reverse delicately under our own power. Then we used the RV as an anchor for the little Toyota to extract itself from its voluntary entrapment.

Success! We were all jubilant. Even our laconic tow operator seemed pleased with the results, and we were delighted the bill came to far less than we would have paid had the truck of my dreams come to save us.

Later that evening, watching the sun set over the ocean, I reflected on how far Sandra and I had come since our marriage back in the late spring. Just after our wedding we had left St. Louis, my home of many years, on our Grand Adventure. We wanted to take our shiny motor coach first to Michigan, then to the central Canadian provinces. We would explore Canada’s bread basket, using the Trans-Canadian highway to get us over to the Canadian Rockies. We planned to meander slowly, pausing often, through those spectacular mountains and then our plans were open, with the proviso we get to Alaska before winter would make travel too difficult in a big RV. After that, as they say in the military, the situation would become more fluid. Beyond Alaska, I reckoned nearly any direction that included the word south would be a good one.

Sandra and I had met just over a year before on the internet, and we quickly became inseparable. I am a man of numerous careers - retired academic medievalist/marketing manager/real estate broker – a classic white collar guy. For the last 13 years, my life had been largely go to the office, work, come home from the office and care for a very sick wife. A strong and courageous woman, she battled a list of illnesses that ran to several pages and a prescription drug intake that sometimes topped 20 different prescription drugs per day. In the end, her body could not fight any longer. Just when it looked as though she might be emerging from another cardiac-related hospitalization, she suffered an early morning massive heart attack.

I received an urgent call from the hospital and rushed to her bedside, only to discover that she had been transferred to the ICU. Her former room was a mess - all the debris of a resuscitation littered the floor.The nurses and residents had done their best, but to no avail. Her cardiologist took me aside and very gently explained that she was, indeed, brain dead. Throughout the remainder of that long, grim day I had to consider the options. Knowing my wife, I finally choked out the directive that I never thought I would be forced to utter - stop the life support. This was a decision made suddenly easier at the very end when she went into cardiac arrest once again.

On December 20, at 7:05 p.m, I was alone.

In time, I found myself wandering through museums, taking short out-of-town trips for the first time in many years, going to magnificent Powell Hall in St. Louis to attend symphony concerts, and even dating again. I signed up for Match, but the very pleasant women I would meet for coffee or movie dates often seemed far more interested in their grandchildren than in any new relationship.

And then Sandra discovered me.

My on-line bio had specified a dating radius no more than 30 miles from St. Louis. Sandra had somehow gotten my information, even though she lived a good 200 miles away in Springfield, Missouri. She had seen my picture on the very day she had finally decided to resign her job as Director of the Springfield Regional Arts Council. Sandra and I found early on we had many interests and life experiences in common, including a shared love of travel, good food and classical music, especially opera. I mention opera because I had found in previous dating forays that Grand Opera was not an art form beloved of some eligible Mid-Western women. Mentions of Siegfried or of the Marchellin in Der Rosenkavalier drew blank looks. One of Sandra’s first emails to me included, So, Carl, are you going to let a few miles spoil our chance of enjoying a great aria together? I was hooked.

I also discovered in reading Sandra’s bio that she did not drink. It was a great relief to learn that my potential new friend and I had both consumed ‘way too many Manhattans in our earlier lives and that now we shared years of sobriety.

Not drinking on first dates could be a bit tricky, as I had discovered. The conversation often went something like:

Oh, you’re not having a drink?

No, I gave it up a long time ago

Health issues, huh? Do you have a bad heart (liver? stomach? pick your body part).

Knowing that Sandra was in recovery was important because our shared experience provided a focal point for deepening our relationship in ways both of us understood.

We began an intensive, personal, and often funny email and telephone exchange, culminating Memorial weekend when I drove to meet my new friend for the first time. I was so excited that I called or emailed her a a number of times during that 200 mile journey. Her responses were delightful: I’m so nervous I want to hide under the bed, but there are too many dust bunnies under there. and I can’t escape out the back door: I can’t find the damned key!

For me, at least, it was love at first sight, and we spent a delightful weekend getting to know each other better and letting Smokey, her handsome blue Chihuahua, get to know me without feeling he either had to bite my ankle or hide under the couch.

After a splendid dinner and a top-down drive around Springfield in Sandra’s vintage, extremely red 1988 Alfa Romeo Spider Veloce, we returned to her house tired and ready for sleep. I was to have the guest bedroom and I somewhat timidly undressed and made ready for bed. Sandra came into the room clad in a cute nightshirt. On impulse I moved to hold her at the end of the bed and we shared our first real kiss. We stood clenched until, somewhat breathlessly, Sandra said, I’ve got a much bigger bed in my bedroom.

In the morning, Sandra made a wonderful breakfast. While we were lingering over coffee, she mentioned that she knew of a charming Victorian artists’ village called Eureka Springs, about 90 miles south in Arkansas. I had not been there for many years, so I was very eager to go and explore. Suiting action to words, we were soon ensconsed in Sandra’s bright chartreuse Jeep, my new pal Smokey riding comfortably on my lap. Once we entered the delightful little town, Sandra mentioned that she knew of a really good B&B and would we like to stay there for the weekend? Of course, I was all in with that idea.

As Sandra drove through town, she gave me a history lesson of Eureka, complete with anecdotes about a number of the locals. This surprised me a bit, as she had not before mentioned a familiarity with anything Arkansan. In a few minutes we arrived in front of a lovely Victorian style B&B. Instead of parking in front where I assumed guests normally park, Sandra raced straight up the steep driveway and parked her Jeep in the empty carport beside the main building. At this point I rather belatedly began to suspect that there was more going on here than I knew about. To my delight, Sandra produced the key to the back door of the inn and with a huge grin announced that she was, indeed, the proud owner of the most popular inn in Eureka Springs.

She explained to me, as we toured the grounds and the other cottages of the inn, that she had built the business from scratch after sailing alone in the Pacific for seven years. She had created her beloved inn with little money and a great deal of chutzpah. I also came to understand how tirelessly she worked to promote the inn and pamper her guests. It would take several crises in our life together before I understood the emotional attachment she had to the inn, her art collection and her heirloom antiques. Her Inn, made up of the Victorian replica she had designed in her logbook while anchored somewhere off Guatemala and then built in Eureka, and her collection of historic houses she had restored all along the same street downtown (her Monopoly game, as she called it) would be a leit motif throughout our early days together, most often a positive force, sometimes a divisive wedge between us.

The best part of our first date weekend (or at least the most revealing) was when Sandra arranged a canoe trip on the White River near her inn. I had not, I confess, been in a canoe since my childhood summer camp days, and I am not a strong swimmer, but Sandra seems to bring out the adventurous in me. The parting words of advice from the canoe rental manager were,

Don’t forget now, they just opened the dam so the water is going to be real fast and real, real cold.

With that encouragement, we set off. Once underway, I let my hand drag in the water and discovered it was, indeed, cold enough to cause severe hypothermia in about four seconds flat! All was going well for the first 20 minutes. I was getting into some semblance of a paddling rhythm, Sandra was trying her best to look boop-boop-be-doo cute sitting at the bow and we were enjoying the scenery when I looked up, startled, to see a low-hanging tree branch directly in our path. I began to paddle more vigorously to avoid it, but the current was quite strong and as contact with the tree branch became inevitable, I made a bad mistake. Ducking sharply to my right, I overturned the canoe and dumped us into the swift, bone-chilling current.

I was very, very scared…panicked, in fact. I have a nearly phobic fear of water, something that has been with me since childhood and, while I can swim, I often feel a real sense of distress in water where I can’t touch bottom. Oh Jesus, I thought as I rolled under the canoe and deep underwater for the first time in many years. I don’t want to die here. In seconds I came bobbing up (I am blessed with buoyancy of a cork!) but I was coughing up water and realized that the current was taking us away from the bank and back out into the middle of the river.

Smokey and I were lucky that day. Sandra is a muscular swimmer and managed to hang onto me and the boat. With strong leg kicks and with me shamed into trying my best to swim with her, we managed to get back to the rocky shore. Treading water, we realized the next challenge would be getting the boat up on the rocks, filled as it was with freezing water. Breathing spasmodically and shivering, we finally managed to shove the canoe onto the lower rocks, where we emptied most of the water. Taking stock, we discovered we had lost one of the paddles and had nearly lost Smokey (fortunately his lead was tied to the mid ship thwart). The little dog’s eyes were like saucers and he has never liked water since.

After resting and trying to get some circulation back into our frozen extremities, we re-floated the canoe and proceeded – very watchfully! – downstream. That we were soon able to laugh about this spoke well for our new relationship. Of course, there was more to come that afternoon. Returning the canoe, we discovered the keys to Sandra’s Jeep were presently whirling down the White River, having fallen out of my pocket when we went upside down. We called the local locksmith, who opened the Jeep but couldn’t start it because of its electronic keying system. The locksmith gave us a ride back to Sandra’s inn, where we changed clothes and took another car back to her house in Springfield (two hours each way) to get the spare Jeep keys. The day turned into a very long one, but we happily joked about our misadventures, a quality I hoped would stand us in good stead in what I was already secretly hoping might turn into a lasting relationship

There is something to be said for long distance romances: you get to listen to all of your favorite CDs as you cruise the otherwise boring interstates running between home and your new heartthrob. I-44 passes through beautiful, rolling parts of the Ozarks where it was possible to actually receive classical/jazz stations. It’s a treat to scan the dial while driving through small-town America and suddenly hear Stravinsky or Brahms. All praise to those stations for keeping a tradition of classical music alive!

During our early months together as a couple, we twice tried a limited version of the RV life. In August of the year we met, Sandra asked if I would join her in her 30-foot motor home for a trip to Door County, Wisconsin. Naturally, I jumped at the chance. I had seen her RV in the driveway of her home in Springfield, but had never even driven it, let alone thought of living in it for a month. Being with Sandra has taught me to jump at new challenges. Plus, the idea of visiting this very artsy part of Wisconsin in August with a new girlfriend sounded irresistible. I hadn’t been to Wisconsin since attending the University of Wisconsin (Madison) summer music camps in high school, but I remembered it would likely be cooler than the steamy lower mid west.

The trip did not start auspiciously.

Tasked with filling the RV’s big fresh water tank, I connected the garden hose to what seemed the right inlet (RV plumbing is a mysterious science best understood by elderly wizards and Ph.D.s in hydraulic engineering). Something quickly went wrong. Within a few minutes, water was cascading enthusiastically from under the side door and down the coach’s steps. I took this as a bad sign, immediately turned off the hose and ran to the house to tell Sandra. She burst out laughing. Many other people I have known would have been caustic or angry. Sandra was neither, and it was a quality I came to appreciate many times in our relationship. Relieved I had not been banned from the trip (or from her life, come to think of it), I began sopping and mopping.

When we ran out of dry towels, I headed off to the nearest big box store to buy a wet/dry vac, then spent the next two hours patiently sucking up water and emptying the ever-heavier canister.Eventually, with everything under control and connected correctly and no faucets open anywhere inside the RV, I finally filled the tank. I had learned a valuable first lesson. RVs are complex, they have many systems, and it is always a good idea to read the manual before starting an operation.

Our trip to Wisconsin was a wonderful success. I learned to drive the motor home with something akin to confidence, at least on the long, straight stretches through rural Illinois and Wisconsin. I could even back it into a campground parking spot if it wasn’t too narrow. The first time I was able to do that unassisted was a cause of quiet celebration for me. It was the first of many opportunities to prove I could master something I had never thought I could do. Successfully backing Sandra’s rig into that Wisconsin space was an I Can Do This moment.

We spent most of our time in Peninsula State Park with frequent trips into the charming little hamlet of Fish Creek to savor the local delicacies and snack on ice cream treats at what was possibly the busiest ice cream venue either of us had ever seen. This part of Wisconsin gets snow - a lot of snow - so most of the shops try to make all the money they can during the short summer season. However, we did find snow mobile trails clearly laid out and marked, with tall snow poles, so there is clearly some winter tourism as well. One of the highlights of the trip was attending a cookout of a type I had never seen before - a Door County Fish Boil.

Hours before the dinner hour, huge cauldrons of water are set a-boil over open